Exinda Quick Tips: How to Control Hot New Apps on the Fly

Exinda Quick Tips: How to Control Hot New Apps on the Fly

Once youâve set up your optimizer configuration it doesnât mean that youâre done. With new and suddenly âhotâ applications on the market (Pokemon Go, anyone?), you need to make sure that they donât overwhelm or affect your traffic. Going back to manually reconfigure your policy every few days can be time consuming.

Luckily, Exinda has Application Groups. Application Groups are a set of defaults on the Exinda that group applications into common categories â such as ârecreationalâ, âstreamingâ and segregate business applications into their own special groups for prioritization. On top of these default Application Groups, the Exinda will let you create your own Application Groups and add any application to it that doesnât belong to another Application Group.

Exinda policies are what control how traffic is shaped â based on applications, IPs, users, or VLANs. If policies are set up by using Application Groups, as new applications come out (or current applications show a spike in usage) it is possible to simply add them to the Application Groups, restart the optimizer and allow for traffic to flow automatically without needing to create dedicated specific policies for each new application.

That means that it is possible to add and remove applications from Application Groups on the fly, and have it automatically changed on the optimizer to reshape bandwidth accordingly. If an application becomes really popular, just add it to the group you want! If an application doesnât exist, create one and add it to a group. As long as the group is governed by a policy on the Exinda optimizer then any new application in the group will follow the same rules! Itâs that simple.

How to Add An Application to an Application Group:

1. Navigate to Configuration > Objects > Applications
2. Click on the âApplication Groupsâ tab.
3. Edit an application group by clicking on the âEditâ button next to its name
4. Add the new application in a blank drop down menu

Alternatively, the Application Group page gives you an option to create an Application Group on your own, with a custom name and whichever applications you want to add.

Once the application is in the Application Group you want, if the group is in a policy, just restart the optimizer. It will pick up the new changes and immediately start to shape traffic on the newest app in the same way as the others. If itâs not, make a policy for the application group with whatever appropriate bandwidth it needs and restart the optimizer.